Using Image Analysis to Study the Effects of Carbon:Nitrogen Ratios in Mock Root Exudates on E. Coli Chemotaxis

Overview

With an ever-growing global population, discovering how to grow crops more efficiently is imperative. Plant-microbe interactions in soil are essential to plant growth, and nutrients are a key component of these interactions. The purpose of this study was to test the effects of the carbon:nitrogen (C:N) ratios of mock root exudates, or compounds released by plants to attract bacteria, on Escherichia coli chemotaxis using a method currently being developed by researchers at Doane University. Image analysis was used to measure the movement of bacteria towards or away from two mock root exudate solutions at two concentrations. Issues with the methodology were discovered upon data analysis, so no conclusive results were found on the effects of the C:Nratio of exudates on chemotaxis, but progress was made towards optimizing the image analysis method for measuring chemotaxis. There were also trends in the data such as a concentration effect that could be reasonably explained by biological processes and should therefore be tested further. Research on developing this method should continue because it is time and cost efficient and able to show the process of chemotaxis, which is not true of other current methods of measuring chemotaxis.

Competition history

• JSHS 2023 Category not listed

Resources

• National JSHS abstract book ↗

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